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Howard Davies, the first chairman of the United Kingdom’s Financial Services Authority (1997-2003), is Chairman of the Royal Bank of Scotland. He was Director of the London School of Economics (2003-11) and served as Deputy Governor of the Bank of England and Director-General of the Confederation of British Industry.

Governors can indeed change the world.
Inflation is not the end of the World.
Democracy empowers Governors and their Central Banks.
Democracy is responsible for prosperity, not inflation alone.
The Bank Underground seems fertile with the World beyond Inflation.
The Bank Underground indeed capable of reflecting on Economics without blinkers.
Democracy needs the Bank Underground as well as the Bank Overground.
To change the goal posts for the Governor.
Governors can indeed change the World.

Good article. Independence has meant isolation for many central banks, not only in terms of ideas but even in terms of understanding how other portions of the government's financial institutions -- like the IRS -- operate. It's left the banks in a position where they can only scale up old and outworn policies, like QE, rather than attempting anything new.

IMO, its important for central bank to be independent, if and only if the provide a firewall between real and financial/monetary markets.

Its not just making sure of price stability, but making sure that if a financial crisis arise, the Central Bank will take action to prevent the spread and minimize the impacts on real economies.

To do that, first all actions of privatizing/nationalizing debt must be first taken by the Central Bank . The view that taxpayers should be made responsible for financial system losses is absurd, the financial system has first to be set accountable and solve their own problems, that's what independence is about.

Governments should be forbidden of bailing out financial institutions and that for sure would mean a whole lot of work remaking Central Banks, namely the European Central bank.

If any action of the central banks imply taxpayers taking responsibilities and making them accountable, then independence is impossible, because those decisions are decisions to be made by elected representatives of the people, not bureaucrats.